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14 You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. […] You’re nothing but a pack of neurons. Crick 1994:11

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15 For the first time in their approx. 150 years, the behavioural sciences not only tell us how we function (mechanics of the mind), but also who we are (architecture and substance of the mind).

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16 Some contemporary views on the soul

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17 Think back to the time before matter had collapsed into the first stars. Since the universe at this time consisted of simple particles randomly scattered through vast reaches of spaces, it seems unlikely that there was experience anywhere to be found. If the universe in this condition was wholly experience-free, how can simply rearranging the same elementary particles have given birth to something fundamentally new and different: consciousness? How can the bringing to­gether of non-experiential things ever produce an experience? Even the simplest experience seems to be something wholly other than a collection of physical atoms. The materialist‘s problem

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18 A new EMPIRICAL challenge for logotherapy: No longer motivation theory but image of man. And no longer as a philosophical issue, but as an empirical problem.

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Logotherapy as a continuing idealist revolution against reductionism ?

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Logotherapy as a continuing idealist revolution against reductionism Who will accept the new challenge? Elisabeth Lukas: Not who, but when will you do it. ?

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27 Frankl‘s Core Ideas on the Noetic Person (Soul) (1950) 1. Psychotherapeutic Credo The belief in the ability of the soul within the human under all conditions and circumstances to pull back and separate itself from its psychophysical dimensions and to assume a productive distance from it. 2.Psychiatry Credo The belief in the persistence of the noetic person (soul) even behind the foreground symptoms of psychotic or neurological illness.

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28 How do we test the Credos vis-a-vis mind-brain reductionism? 1.Seek Frontier Situations and Conditions which may loosen the closely knit structure of the human person 2.Enables us to do fine grained analysis of the ontological structure of the human person 3.Use interdisciplinary methodology 4.Test predictions of materialism vs dualism

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29 Perfect Case 1: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, OCD 1.Kidnaps the will 2.Robs patients of freedom despite better knowledge & intentions 3.Affects all dimensions of the patient. 4.As disorder of the freedom of will, it is the paradigmatic case for our research project.

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OCD and the Predictions of the Psychotherap. Credo 1.Difference btw. symptom and person 2.Soul/noetic core cannot fall ill and therefore 3.can distance itself from psy-phy dimensions 4.is free not from conditions, but free how to deal with them 5. Causal efficacy of the soul on brain? Empirical test of Psychotherap. Credo (i.e. Soul Hypothesis): Apply this to OCD = 4 Steps (J. Schwartz, UCLA)

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(1)Relabel (2)Reattribute (3)Refocus (4)Revalue It’s not me, it’s OCD, a brain disorder. I decide against my kidnapped will and do what is really meaningful. It works. And the urge is getting lower in comparison to the result of my meaningful work. I feel an urge against my will. It is not my will, but a mis-firing brain. (J. Schwartz, UCLA) For one month, when obsessions come, then:

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Glucose Metabolism in the Orbital Cortex: Same patient, severe OCD for > 20 years before and after four weeks „treatment“

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Credo becomes an empirical fact There is one particularly key point, both clinically and philosophically, to comprehend about what occurs at the interface of the conscious mind and brain activity in the course of treatment–those moments always involve an active process. For at the moment when the man with OCD summons the mental strength to exert his will and physically actualize his new understanding by adaptively changing his meaningful behaviour, he will be overcoming tremendous biological forces that are operating in order to resist that change. And the force represents the essence of what the words active and purposeful really mean. In brief, these findings seem to tell us one thing, and they do so very loudly: “You are not your brain”. (Schwartz 1999, J Clin Neuropsychiatry )

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Credo becomes an empirical fact There is one particularly key point, both clinically and philosophically, to comprehend about what occurs at the interface of the conscious mind and brain activity in the course of treatment–those moments always involve an active process. For at the moment when the man with OCD summons the mental strength to exert his will and physically actualize his new understanding by adaptively changing his meaningful behaviour, he will be overcoming tremendous biological forces that are operating in order to resist that change. And the force represents the essence of what the words active and purposeful really mean. In brief, these findings seem to tell us one thing, and they do so very loudly: “You are not your brain”. (Schwartz 1999, J Clin Neuropsychiatry )

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Credo becomes an empirical fact There is one particularly key point, both clinically and philosophically, to comprehend about what occurs at the interface of the conscious mind and brain activity in the course of treatment–those moments always involve an active process. For at the moment when the man with OCD summons the mental strength to exert his will and physically actualize his new understanding by adaptively changing his meaningful behaviour, he will be overcoming tremendous biological forces that are operating in order to resist that change. And the force represents the essence of what the words active and purposeful really mean. In brief, these findings seem to tell us one thing, and they do so very loudly: “You are not your brain”. (Schwartz 1999, J Clin Neuropsychiatry )

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48 Frankl‘s Core Ideas on the Noetic Person (Soul) (1950) 1. Psychotherapeutic Credo The belief in the ability of the soul within the human under all conditions and circumstances to pull back and separate itself from its psychophysical dimensions and to assume a productive distance from it. 2.Psychiatric Credo The belief in the persistence of the noetic person (soul) even behind the foreground symptoms of psychotic or neurological illness. 

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49 Challenge and Methods: 1.Seek Frontier Situations and Conditions which may loosen the closely knit structure of the human person Psychosis, Dementia, Alzheimer Disease, and Death

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50 Psychosis, Dementia, Alzheimer Disease, etc. 1.The strongest form of the brain determinism 2.Patients forget who they are, what they are, bizzare behaviour, disinhibition, violence, aggression, catatonia, etc. Death: Depending on your view of the human person: 1.Either: An even stronger form of brain determinism: decides about your existence or non-existence 2.Or the strongest form of self-distancing from a diseased brain.

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53 A small chance, but still a chance 1.A Frontier Situation which may loosen the closely knit structure of the human being (mind, body, spirit) Perhaps something happens, if only in the very small time window of the process of dying which is unexpected by materialism, yet predicted, or at least possible, from the viewpoint of personalism?

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57 Frankl‘s Core Ideas on the Noetic Person (Soul) (1950) Psychiatric Credo The belief in the persistence of the noetic person (soul) even behind the foreground symptoms of psychotic or neurological illness.

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60 Numbers vs. Persons: „Before this happened, I was fairly cynical about the human vegetables I cared for. Now I understand that I am caring for nurslings of immortality. I actually see them growing up towards death. I know I cannot prove this to you, but had you seen what I saw, you would understand that a brain disorder can affect the soul but it cannot destroy it. I only wish I would have known this earlier“ – A respondent (nurse)

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61 Numbers vs. Persons: „Before this happened, I was fairly cynical about the human vegetables I cared for. Now I understand that I am caring for nurslings of immortality. I actually see them growing up towards death. I know I cannot prove this to you, but had you seen what I saw, you would understand that a brain disorder can affect the soul but it cannot destroy it. I only wish I would have known this earlier“ – A respondent (nurse) Frankl: The noetic person is disturbable, but not destructable.

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62 Frankl‘s Core Ideas on the Noetic Person (Soul) (1950) 1. Psychotherapeutic Credo The belief in the ability of the soul within the human under all conditions and circumstances to pull back and separate itself from its psychophysical dimensions and to assume a productive distance from it. 2.Psychiatry Credo The belief in the persistence of the noetic person (soul) even behind the foreground symptoms of psychotic or neurological illness.  

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64 Logotherapy as a discipline of dialogue The Contemporary Challenge has been met Individual Past Biology /Collective Past Environment Feeling The Self = The Brain Each challenge brought logotherapy a step forward, so let‘s see where this will lead to …